Fried Herb-y Chicken Tenders
This is a first for me. My first official foray into deep frying. There are of course oodles of reasons to avoid deep frying (unhealthy, messy, scary…), but the results are just so gosh-darned tasty! I love fried chicken, but Greg doesn’t – something weird about not liking bones in his meat (same reason he’s missing out on the wonder that is BBQ Ribs). So when I saw this recipe on the blog ErinCooks, it struck me as the perfect recipe to try.
Last night, I set about preparing the chicken and letting it marinade in its buttermilk bath overnight. And technically, these aren’t chicken tenders, they are just large chicken breasts cut into 4 long strips. The chicken tenders were unreasonably expensive and I was feeling frugal at the store this week.
Rosemary and Thyme
The first step is to chop the herbs and onions. Never underestimate the difference fresh herbs make. I’m pretty bad about keeping them in the house, but I just happened to pick up some fresh, unusually lovely looking rosemary and thyme at the store. Chop them rather finely, then combine them with the sliced onion, spices (cayenne pepper and paprika) and buttermilk.
Herbs and Onions
The Buttermilk Bath
Slice the chicken and mix it all up together in a storage container, making sure to coat and submerge the chicken thoroughly. Because there are just two of us here, I halved the portions of chicken and buttermilk mix ingredients. Once its all mixed together, store in the refrigerator overnight (or at least 8 hours).
After the soak
When its dinner time, drain the chicken (don’t rinse!!). Mix the dry breading ingredients (flour and spices) in a gallon-sized zip-top bag. Put the drained chicken, with its herb-y goodness still stuck to it. Coat with the flour and then its time for the jacuzzi.
The Jacuzzi
Hot oil is a strange and beautiful beast.
Oily Swirls
Frying Chicken
I used my Le Cruset because it is heavy and holds the heat well. I however, as is my ever impatient nature, did not let the oil heat up quite enough. Sure, it sizzled when I threw some flour in, but the temperature wasn’t quite high enough to prevent the chicken from getting a bit greasy. Not that I’m complaining too much…it was still absolutely delicious! I made the accompanying creamy honey mustard dip. It was sweet and tangy and perfect with the herb-y freshness of the chicken.
Cool and Drain
Dipping Sauce
Up-Close and Personal
And on the side, steamed asparagus. I’m not a total glutton! Would fresh buttermilk biscuits have been better? Oh probably, but I do have an ounce of self-control!
A Half-Way Healthy Dinner
The only slight change I may make to this recipe in the future would be to add cornmeal or some Panko breadcrumbs to make the chicken a little crispier, although allowing the oil to heat up properly would help too.
Prep Ranking: #2 Weeknight Fare (a weeknight where you have perhaps a little more time than normal)
Tastiness Grading: 8 out of 10
Please visit the link for the recipe, I don’t want to take credit for a recipe that was so nicely written about somewhere else first!
[...] parmesan when we go out, that crispy, breaded chicken is so yummy! But as I have documented here, I’m not much of a deep-frier, due to the ridiculous clean-up that follows. I think this is [...]